Pictures That No Longer Mirror My Life
by Mary Sue Murderer
Summary: A short drabble I wrote as a prelude to a DracoHarry fic that I will be posting on another site (due to more mature, violent content). Draco's thoughts at the beginning of his sixth year while looking at an old family photo. Please R&R!


Draco Malfoy sat alone in the Slytherin common room, reclined in one of the high-backed black leather chairs. His head rested against the cool, smooth material with his cheek pressed firmly against the dark material. One leg was crossed over the other, his angle resting atop the other leg's knee. His cold eyes seemed distant as they stared dully at the object clutched in his long, slender fingers: a pewter frame with vine-like engravings, containing a single black and white photo. Three figures posed in the brief moment of time captured there: his mother, his father, and himself. He watched them move before his eyes, like miniature versions of his own family kept alive in the cage of the frame.  
  
His mother fixed her hair, smoothing the satin of her deep blue robes, tilting her chin higher to pose. She was beautiful. Many had told her so, and she herself was quite aware of that fact. His own father had noticed it himself years ago when he chose to marry the woman, though in the end it was their similar thinking that sealed the deal. She looked distant in the photograph, as if her mind were in a different place at the time. Indeed, the picture was accurate to life then.  
  
Standing beside and slightly in back of his mother was the much taller figure of his father. He wore a top hat and a green and blue cloak over his own black robes. His smile was larger than the small smirk on his mother's lips, though it wasn't nearly as settling. It seemed dangerous. Draco could almost see his father's many plans pushing at the tiny photographic mouth, as if trying to escape through the devious expression. But somehow he kept it concealed, even in the very midst of those who were looking for those exact things. The ministry had been fools, his father had told him as much, but were useful tools nonetheless. His father almost seemed amazed that they'd not caught on earlier. Draco had believed that they would never see it coming.  
  
Reluctantly, Draco moved his eyes down to the much smaller figure in the foreground of the picture, seeming almost out of place. There stood the image of himself at age eleven, just before he left for his first year at Hogwarts. His hair was carefully groomed back against his head, and he wore the uniform of a first year student, complete with a Slytherin scarf. Though he'd yet to have been sorted into the house, his family had no doubt in their mind that he would be properly placed as they themselves had been. The scarf was his father's, which he'd given to his son the day he received his letter of invitation. This, among other reasons, was why Draco didn't seem to belong in the picture. His smile was genuine. The haughtiness he'd always possessed still showed, a side affect of knowing full well that he was superior to others, but the smile had no scheming undertones or even the slightest smirking pull at it's corners. He was truly happy standing there with his parents in front of their mansion. In just a few days he knew he'd have the chance to start proving himself to them, showing exactly how much potential their son really had inside him.  
  
The real Draco sighed in the chair, the expulsion of air nearly silent in the large room. Almost everything in that picture was gone now. The mansion had been taken by the ministry, along with most of the contents inside (to be examined for signs of the Dark Arts and any plans they may contain for the Dark Lord's resurgence). His mother was no longer so proud, having been disgraced in all the papers time and time again. His father had been whisked away to Azkaban like some common criminal, just as he was about to move up in the Dark Lord's ranks. And as for that smile on his own mouth... that, too, had been stolen from him. All of this, because of one boy.  
  
Draco was going to kill Harry Potter. As much as the Dark Lord wished to be the one to end his life, Draco wanted it more. Draco would make Harry suffer and pay in blood for what he'd done to him. 


End file.
